Life, Death, and Choices
by nebula2
Summary: Spoiler Alert for the episode "Epilogue". Tag for the episode "Epilogue". David Rossi finds the advice he needs to make a hard decision in the last place he would have thought to look.


_**AN: Just a little piece for the episode "Epilogue". Thanks to peanutmeg for the suggestions and title! Hope you all enjoy!**_

_**The final ballot for the 2011 Profiler's Choice Criminal Minds awards is up at Chit Chat on Author's Corner. Please take the time to check it out, and enjoy the many wonderful stories there. Several of my stories- "Careless Man's Careful Daughter", "Eternal Changes", "Silent Cries", "Notorious", and "Sparks" have made the ballot.**_

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><p>SSA David Rossi surveyed the scene. Local law enforcement and a crime scene team were going over the entire area, gathering what evidence there was in order for them to close the case properly. For the most part, his teammates' and his role in the case was at an end, other than giving their statements about what had taken place here. The victims, mother and son, had been ushered onto an ambulance by paramedics to get checked out at the hospital. The fact that the team had arrived in time to save them gave Rossi a good feeling inside. This was one of those rare good days. Even the UnSub had been saved, in part. The troubled young man was dying, and even if he was deemed stable enough to face trial, might not live long enough to face whatever sentence he might receive. Part of him questioned whether the risk Reid had taken going into the lake after the man was really worth it.<p>

Rossi spotted Reid standing by one of their SUVs, a local officer walking away from the still wet agent. Reid had his arms wrapped tightly across himself, as if he was attempting to stay warm, but even from this distance Rossi could see the younger man shiver. Stepping over to an officer near one of the patrol cars, Rossi asked him if he had a blanket. The local opened the trunk of the police car and handed over a rough army blanket. The item in hand, Rossi crossed over to his younger teammate.

"I thought you might need this," Rossi said evenly as he approached Reid, holding out the blanket.

Reid took it without protest. "Thanks," he said quietly, unfolding the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders.

"You could wait inside the SUV," Rossi suggested, nodding his head slightly in the direction of the vehicle behind Reid.

"I'm fine," Reid said, shaking his head.

Rossi let it go. It wasn't worth the argument. He continued to gaze at the younger man, waging an internal debate about whether or not to ask him a question simply because he wasn't sure he wanted to know Reid's answer. Reid gazed back at him. There was a time that the younger agent would have looked away instead of holding his gaze, and in that moment Rossi realized how much Reid had 'grown up' since he had first met the young genius. He wasn't just the 'kid' that he could impart wisdom on but a fellow agent whom he could also learn things from and with that realization the debate ended."

"Why did you do it?"

"What?" Reid asked, clearing not grasping exactly what Rossi was trying to ask with his question.

"Why did you go into the lake and pull Chase Whittiker out of the water? He had made his choice, and some might say that after all the people he had killed and given his medical condition that trying to save him wouldn't have been worth the risk. He's going to die anyway what difference does it make if it was today or three months down the line?"

"It's not my decision to make," Reid replied immediately. "I had a chance to save him. I had to try."

"And it's just that black and white to you?" Rossi questioned, trying to understand the younger man.

"Yes. I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't at least attempted to save Chase Whittiker from drowning. Life is worth fighting for, regardless of whether it's for two more hours or two decades. You wouldn't have at least made the attempt?"

Coming from someone else, Rossi might have perceived that question as an accusation. Coming from Reid, he knew it was only an inquiry. The younger man's attempt at understanding the situation from as many directions as he could.

"I'm not really sure anymore," Rossi replied, receiving an even more quizzical look from the young genius.

He had told Prentiss that he didn't have a choice when it came to Carolyn's request. After all they had made a promise to one another. Reid's way of looking at the decision he had been faced with here today gave him something to think about. Made him realize that he did have a choice. He had promised her that he would be there to help her through whatever life threw her way. He could be true to that promise without doing what she had asked him to do. No, watching her suffer wouldn't be easy but it wasn't his choice to decide when she died. That decision was best left to someone else. He wasn't the only one who was ever faced with the heartache of watching a loved one suffer due to an illness.

~_And some people have to watch a loved one struggle with an illness a lot longer than I'll have to watch Carolyn suffer, _~ Rossi thought, still gazing at the teammate standing in front of him.

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><p>David Rossi sensed more than heard someone else approaching where he sat. Looking up from the gravestones he was sitting beside, he saw his youngest teammate striding across the grass toward him. Hands in his pockets as usual, Reid's posture still showed the new found confidence the young genius had been displaying more and more recently. Though he had thought about it on numerous occasions, Rossi couldn't really pinpoint where the change had taken place but perhaps that was because it had been a slow evolution; the change had been the inevitable result of everything the young agent had been through over the past four years. There was no denying that the change in Reid had been for the good.<p>

Rossi waited until Reid was near him before speaking up. "Aaron already stopped by to talk about things. What happened to Carolyn wasn't the same as what happened to Haley, but they're still gone, and he and I have to deal with the aftermath. Morgan stopped by afterwards with his condolences. Then suggested I got out for drinks with him as drinking alone isn't usually a good idea," Rossi said, holding up his almost empty wine glass. "JJ, Emily and Garcia came by not long after he left, but, needless to say I'm not really in the mood to be 'cheered up' so to speak. So, Reid, you can save your efforts, if you don't mind."

"That's good because I'm not really good at trying to cheer people up," Reid replied, gazing down at Rossi who looked up from him from his spot on the blanket.

"Then why are you here?"

"I thought maybe you would like some company and perhaps maybe someone to tell your thoughts and feelings too. No judgments, no words of advice, just someone to listen," Reid replied quietly, repeating the words Rossi had said to him not so long ago before he had taken the sabbatical to go out to Vegas for a while. "I'm really good at listening," he added.

"I'm sure you are," Rossi replied. He paused a moment before gesturing to the empty spot on the blanket behind him.

Reid silently stepped around him, and sat with his back to Rossi, waiting for the older man to talk whenever he was ready.

And it didn't take long before Rossi started talking. He started with mentioning how he and Carolyn had met. It was good to relive those happy moments. Told Reid about the promise they had made while going through their divorce, something that he hadn't told anyone else about, not even Prentiss when he had told her what was going on. Repeated the same thing he had said to Prentiss when she had inquired about what Carolyn had wanted.

"I was so torn about what to do. I wanted to be true to my promise but deep down I knew what she was asking was wrong. I finally saw that I didn't have to help her to die to keep that promise. That just being there for her, no matter how hard it was to watch the disease take her away, was all I needed to do to honor that promise. You made me see that."

"Me?" Reid asked. It was the first word he had said since sitting down.

"You went into the lake to save Chase Whittiker even though we already knew he was dying. You said you had to try. That life was worth fighting for. You made it seem so easy. So black and white, even after you've spent most of your life watching someone you love struggle with a disease that controls their life. I realized then that if you were able to keep things in perspective like that, are able to go on day after day dealing with that struggle without an end in sight, then surely I had the strength to help Carolyn through the time that she had left. You really are one of the strongest people I know, Dr. Reid."

Reid swallowed hard, trying to gain control of his emotions. When he finally felt more in control, he turned his head to look over his shoulder to see Rossi gazing back at him. "That means a lot to me coming from you, sir."

"I mean it," Rossi told him. "In the four years I've known you, I've watched you grow from a shy, overexcited, star struck kid into a confident, strong young man that I'm proud to call my teammate. When I first came back to the bureau, I didn't think I had anything else to learn. I was proven wrong and I've got to admit that you were the last one I expected to learn from."

Reid looked away, unable to speak. Unsure of how to react to the praise from the man he had looked up too even before he had met him.

Rossi gazed down at the gravestone of his son. "You know, I often wondered if things would have been different if James had lived more than a few hours. Oh, Carolyn and I already had some problems but they seemed so much bigger after we lost him. Seemed like we couldn't work anything out or perhaps we just stopped trying. Often wondered if I would have made a decent father."

"I think you would have," Reid supplied.

"And what do you have to base that opinion on, Dr. Reid?"

"I've seen you interact with kids on our cases, and you have a way of treating them like real people. That they're important. Kids need to know that. You took Seaver under your wing when she started with the BAU. You still check in on the Galens even though that case has been solved. All that tells me that if your son had lived, no matter what happened between you and Carolyn, that you would have found a way to stay in touch with him. That you wouldn't have just left him. That right there is a lot more than some parents can manage."

Rossi knew Reid was thinking about his own father who had abandoned Reid and his mother. He couldn't understand any better than Reid could how William Reid could have done something like that to his wife and child. And he couldn't deny that the kid had profiled him right. No matter what, he would have found a way to be a part of James life if his son had lived.

"James would have only been a couple of years older than you," Rossi commented, not sure why he was vocalizing that realization.

"I'm sure he would have been the kind of person that you would have been proud of," Reid said, not sure what else he could say.

"Me too," Rossi commented. "I'd also like to think he would have grown up to have the same strength, compassion, and sense of integrity of another young man I know," he added, reaching back and clasping Reid's shoulder.

Reid ducked his head and felt the heat rise in his cheeks as the two teammates fell into a comfortable silence.


End file.
